Cancer treatment hailed a success

Researchers are hailing the success of a new treatment for cancer patients, which could eliminate the damaging side-effects of chemotherapy.

The method, using geneticallyengineered cells, simply cuts off the supply of blood to the tumour.

Two groups of researchers, in Norway and the U.S., have worked on the treatment using rats and mice.

Both found it reduced the growth of cancer by more than 70 per cent.

If the success was repeated in humans, it could replace treatments such as chemotherapy, meaning patients would no longer have to suffer side-effects such as hair loss, nausea and damage to healthy tissue. The key to the treatment is a protein called endostatin.

When a tumour takes hold, it hijacks nearby blood vessels to supply it with nutrients and oxygen, which it uses to grow and spread.

Endostatin stops these new blood vessels from forming.

Earlier research to inject the protein into animals failed because the host's immune system attacked it.

The new research, announced in the Nature Biotechnology journal, used a jelly-like capsule to protect the protein.

Kidney cells from a hamster were genetically engineered to secrete endostatin and, once in the body, acted as a drug 'factory', producing a constant supply of the protein.

Both teams of scientists found that the treatment had far fewer side-effects than chemotherapy.

They believe that it could prolong the survival of patients by up to two years.